CLASSIC POLIS-ETHNOS-COSMOS TRILEMMA: A Geopolitical Problem

THE CLASSIC TRILEMMA
--------- OF ---------
POLIS-ETHNOS-COSMOS

By

Paris Arnopoulos

PANTEION UNIVERSITY
ATHENS
1996







THE CLASSIC POLIS-ETHNOS-COSMOS TRILEMMA





ABSTRACT

The vital problem of world affairs is how to resolve the contradictions
between political order and cosmic chaos, thus establishing a peaceful
coexistence between widely opposing cultures and ideologies. This problem
was first conceptualized by the ancient Greeks who discussed and proposed
various solutions which have yet to be surpassed.
Although, the miniature world of the city-state (polis), instead of nation-
state (ethnos), ultimately succumbed to the external forces of the world at
large (cosmos); its ideas and actions are still relevant. The significant
correspondence between the Hellenic era and the present makes these
particular thoughts of general interest because they may help us understand
and resolve our own problems.
This study attributes the classic Hellenic malaise to the agonistic
pathology of its people, reflected in the classic trichotomy of:
-political power: separating citizen and foreigner, native and alien;
-economic wealth: distinguishing rich and poor, free and slave;
-biosocial culture: dichotomizing Greeks and barbarians, civil and wild.
The resulting trilemma therefore became how to combine patriotism,
nationalism and humanism. The main ideas proposed fall into a Political
thesis, Pan-Hellenic antithesis, and Cosmopolitan synthesis.
The hypothesis of this study asserts that the Polis-Ethnos-Cosmos triptych
remains a perennial trilemma of the human condition. Thus juxtaposed, the
three fundamental identity values (patriotism, nationalism, humanism) can
neither be maximized nor extinguished, as many have and still try to do in
turbulent periods of global change.
Our present transition from modern to post-modern world is just as dynamic
and dangerous as that from the Hellenic to Hellenistic era.
Looking how the Greeks recognized but did not resolve their problems in the
past could then contribute to our search for better world in the future.
This study does so by reminding us of the ancient wisdom in the everlasting
search for local-regional-global coexistence.


Paris Arnopoulos,
Concordia University,
Montreal, Summer, 1996.

Introduction

The macropolitical picture of our post-modern world presents many
problems and paradoxes at the turn of this millennium.
On the one hand, we see the growing trend for economic
interdependence of the global system, yet on the other hand, we witness the
growing demand for political independence of many nations. While
multiplying network of transportation and communication channels integrate
the planet into a global village, local cultures and old languages revive
to disintegrate the world into a tribal multitude. As the United Nations is
shaping an EGO with planetary norms, international laws, and common
policies; there is more religious intolerance, political terrorism, ethnic
cleansing, and ideological extremism of all sorts.
One may well wonder what is the world coming to? To answer that
question, a scholar must go back into history to see if something that ever
happened before. If it did, what lessons can we learn from that experience?
Although, every era is unique in some respects, and ours is certainly
unique in many, there is a continuity in history and a similarity in
humanity, so that it is possible to compare different periods and draw
general conclusions from particular ideas and events.
This is what we intend to do here in a comparative study of classical
theory and modern reality. On the basis of a long research, we have
discovered a significant correspondence between the Hellenic era of twenty-
five centuries ago and the contemporary world. Although, there are many
important quantitative differences, the Greek world and ours share
qualitative similarities which make a comparison not only possible, but
desirable.
More specifically, we want to see how the Greeks reacted to the
dramatic events of their world, as well as how their thinkers understood
what was going on and how they proposed to solve their problems. Perhaps
their suggestions can help us with ours. Looking at the Greek polis and its
exopolitics, we will try to see how the city-state system was thought of
and how it corresponds with our thinking of the contemporary nation-state
system in a global perspective.

Critics of classical studies contend that the ancient world has
nothing to say to the modern, especially in the field of world affairs.
Contemporary politics, they say, require breadth of vision in a global
scale, whereas ancient concepts are both parochial and anachronistic.
Yet, what was Greece but a world in miniature. If one substitutes
nation-states for city-states the politics of Greece become surprisingly
contemporary. With the least imagination one can see that the problems of
Greece are not only not outdated, but have now engulfed the whole world.
The highly developed consciousness of political space in Greek
thought, like today, was a direct reflection of the actual political
conditions of the world: a world in which a multitude of sovereign states,
driven by the dynamics of power, class struggles, population pressures, and
socioeconomic disequilibria, impinged upon each other and found it
impossible to act in any way without colliding.
In such an interdependent world, the sense of being hemmed-in was
written large in Greek, as in modern politics and is reflected in all the
attempts to ease the pressures and to resolve the conflicts inherent in the
system. In a political universe of over two hundred interacting units, the
classical Greek, like modern man, was involved in the same controversies of
war and peace, conflict resolution, peaceful settlement of disputes,
intergovernmental organization, and political integration.
Statesmen, then as now, tried to defend their national interests and
sought security through legal neutrality, military alliances, arms control
and balance of power. In both eras the basic assumption of state
sovereignty was hardly questioned. It was rather taken as a constant and
all solutions had to adjust to it.
As we know, the city-state system was finally destroyed primarily as
a result of its internal contradictions. Its decline and fall seems to have
proceeded with the inevitability of a Greek tragedy. Will the analogy with
the contemporary world be carried to the same end? Perhaps the failures of
the Greeks can teach us as much as their successes.
The vital problems of ancient Greece of how to resolve the
contradictions between political freedom and international order, and how
to establish a peaceful coexistence between widely opposing ideologies and
cultures, have hardly been solved in the three millennia of human history.
It is with this in mind that both apologists and critics of classical
studies, agree that many aspects of Greek thought are still relevant in our
time.
The vital problems of ancient Greece of how to resolve the
contradictions between political freedom and international order, and how
to establish a peaceful coexistence between widely opposing ideologies and
cultures, have hardly been solved in the three millennia of human history.
It is with this in mind that both apologists and critics of classical
studies, agree that many aspects of Greek thought are still relevant in our
time.
The important issues debated then as now focus on the trilemma posed
by political sovereignty, national unity and global security. The question
is how did the Greeks proposed to solve the problems of increasing conflict
and disorder in their world of independent states much like ours. Scholars
have often asked why the Greeks did not unite politically to form a single
nation-state and thus solve the twin specter of internal poliarchy and
external anarchy. The answers blame the geographical configuration of
Greece and the political parochialism of the city-states for the absence of
a strong national consciousness. Herein, we try to see if this geopolitical
diagnosis is correct.
The questions we pose here are: how the Greek intellectuals perceive
the condition of the Greek world; how they reacted to it, and how they
proposed to change it. Did these men realize where they were heading, did
they do anything about it; and if so, where did they go wrong? What was the
relation between political theory and historical praxis? Were the great
thinkers of Greece blind to their political situation, or were their
warnings ignored by the politicians and the public? Is the hypothesis that
men have very little influence upon the forces of history true? Were the
Greeks fully conscious of their course, but unable to change it? Can any of
these generalizations be substantiated, or is our information insufficient
for any definitive conclusions.
Our thesis here is that the PEC triptych is a perennial trilemma of
the human condition which may be temporarily suppressed or locally
accommodated but cannot be universally or ultimately resolved. PEC
juxtaposes three fundamental human identity values (patriotism,
nationalism, humanism) which can neither be maximized nor extinguished.
These levels of social attachment are innate attributes of exopolitics
which are impossible to reduce into a single overriding value. In other
words, the utility function of these three variables has no optimal
singularity. At best, it may only be equilibrated in the zero-sum game of
global macropolitics.

The PEC Triptych

We begin our argument by ranging the elements of the PEC triptych
along the following continuum:

MICRO MESO MACRO
POLISCOSMOS
STATE NATION WORLD
This schematic representation puts polis and cosmos as the two polar
opposites in our universe of discourse. The confrontation between these
realities (state vs empire), also engendered the debate between their
opposing ideologies (patriotism vs humanism). The ethnic position in the
middle (nation), was supposed to effect a policy solution, as well as a
theoretical synthesis of the two extremes.
In discussing the various aspects of this dialectical debate, we use
the SET axiom to construct a two-dimensional space-time field. The spatial
dimension contains the PEC continuum, while the temporal dimension follows
the past-present-future progression. As to the existential third dimension,
consisting of the personal-social-natural domains, it is held constant
around the social domain because that is where macropolitics is focused.
This application coincides with the two-dimensional (vertical in time
and horizontal in space) use of the dialectic method to form the following
3x3 Table:

PEC-TAS-SET


SPACE ACTUAL IDEAL REAL
TIME THESIS ANTITHESIS SYNTHESIS
LOCAL REGIONAL GLOBAL

Human

CLASSIC THESIS Polis Ethnos Cosmos

MODERN ANTITHESIS City Nation World

FUTURE SYNTHESIS Urbanity Continental Planetary

Earth

It is evident that the matrix contains the main ingredients for our
theory: i.e. static, dynamic and dialectic systems, in a spatial and
temporal classification. In this scheme, the columns represent the
increasing levels of ideological geopolitical aggregation, whereas the rows
represent the arrow of time through macrohistory.

The first row explores the classic contradictions among the politic,
ethnic and cosmic domains, as seen by the Greeks. The second row does the
same among the national, regional and global aspects of our contemporary
world. Finally, the third row attempts to forecast the probable tendencies
of these dialectic confrontations into the 21st Century.
It should be noted that above and below the three sociosphere sectors
are the egosphere of the individual human being and the ecosphere of the
natural environment respectively, both of which are given as externalities
in this model.
On this basis, we are now ready to elaborate on each of the Matrix
rows and columns, as representative of the theory and praxis of the three
chronological periods as well as their topological ideals.

Classic Foundations

As we saw, since synoecism is the basis of community life, the
requirements for a viable city-state came to be: economic sufficiency,
political security and cultural amenity. Out of them evolved the two
dimensions of state sovereignty: i.e. vertical authority (de jure ) and
power (de facto ), as well as horizontal jurisdiction (internal) and
independence (external); which have always been concentrated either on city-
states or capital-cities.
The classical polis did not differentiate between polity and society.
The demos was also the polis, with little difference between public
(politics) and private (economics) affairs. It was only later that
Justinian's corpus juris reemphasized Lex Regia as absolute state
sovereignty, whereas classical jus naturale was based on universal and
eternal principles. Eventually, sovereign auctoritas descended from dei
gratia to vox populi, thus confirming the reversion towards modern
democracy.
However defined, sovereignty became the supreme authority to rule,
tax, and draft people. As such, politics determines who gets what, when and
how. In this context, Hellenic sociopolitical theory may be summarized by
focusing on three intersecting dichotomies which reflect the traditional
"we/they" distinction between insiders and outsiders in any society.
The first and foremost delimits the political domain by separating
the citizen from the foreigner. This power distinction is based on the
difference between natives and aliens in the polity. The former participate
in sovereign policy-making, whereas the latter do not.
The second dichotomy concerns the economic sector and distinguishes
the rich from the poor. This wealth distinction is based on the right to
own property. On that basis, the free are those who may accumulate wealth,
whereas the slaves are the commodities of somebody else's property.
Finally, the third division is that between Greeks and barbarians.
This biocultural distinctions is based on the racial assumption of a
superior civilization confronting other either primitive or decadent
cultures. Whether by birth or education, this dichotomy results in an
international caste segregation between one ethnic group and all the
others.

The combination of these three inclusion-exclusion criteria explains
the different behavioral, moral, and legal codes of social groups in a
comparative perspective. Thus a Greek who identifies himself as the free
citizen of a polis, relates with his political state, cultural nation, and
economic world in a diminishing degree of attachment.
It is evident that classical theory and praxis was caught in a
terrible trilemma which ultimately proved insoluble: i.e. how to combine
patriotism, nationalism and humanism. Although they saw the danger of
political divisiveness, the Greeks could not find a formula which optimized
the advantages of national unity and local autonomy, at the same time as
they struggled to survive within the larger cosmic environment. Their
failure typified the protean Greek tragedy of marching to one's doom in
full knowledge of the outcome.
In dialectic terms, the political thesis was both the actual reality
of Greece as well as the ideal theory of Plato and Aristotle. Politicians
and philosophers alike defended the polis as the sine qua non of a
civilized life worthy of an advanced civilization. The former tried
repeatedly to find a balance of power which permitted all of them to
coexist in the same tight space with the minimum of elbow room
maneuverability. The latter also tried unsuccessfully to propose reforms by
which the polis could minimize its external contacts and thereby raise the
threshold of interstate frictions and conflicts.
The antithesis to political independence was promoted by the
Panhellenists who were prepared to sacrifice state sovereignty on the altar
of national survival. Seeing the barbarians knocking at the gates, the
nationalists pushed for political integration into at least a loose
confederation of the Greek world. Alas, they too failed more miserably than
their political opponents.
Ironically, the synthesis of the opposing conservative and
integrative positions came from an unexpected direction: first from the
north by Macedonian hegemony and then from the west by Roman conquest. But
both kingdom and empire, were precisely the forms of government that the
Greeks were trying to avoid because they considered them apolitical and
barbaric regimes, hence not a fair exchange for their beloved city-state.
So when they eventually succumbed to them, they did so out of seer
exhaustion, rather than selection.

It seems that in their conflict between reason and emotion, the
Greeks were unable to make the necessary compromise which could create a
viable nation-state. Instead, they were relegated to live as serfs in an
imperial province of secondary rank. Was their failure inevitable in the
global scheme of things or could they have prevented their fateful demise,
thereby changing the history of the world?
This academic question has often been asked but rarely answered.
According to our thesis here, although history could certainly have turned
out differently, the eventual decline of Hellenism could not have been
prevented. Every civilization, as all systems, has a certain life span
which sooner or later must come to an end.
Moreover, even if Greece could unite in a single state, it would no
longer be classical Greece, but some other entity. It is not possible to
simply change one parameter of a social system without affecting the
others. A Greece without city-states would also be a Greece without the
Hellenic culture which was based on the polis. So what purpose would such
unity serve, if not cultural protection?
Some would answer: economic. Sacrificing one's quality of life to
raise one's standard of living may be a worthy goal and could have assured
Greek prosperity by exploiting the Mediterranean world. If Greece would
have done what Italy did, it could have established its own Pax Hellenica
and lasted another couple of centuries as the dominant empire of the
region, something that Alexander tried to do. But inexorably, other forces
would have risen at its center or periphery to bring it down eventually.
This conclusion is demonstrated by the rise and fall of all states,
nations, or empires, throughout history. So there is no point in further
"what if" musings. What is more interesting is to compare then and now and
contrast the similarities or differences which could help with our
quandary. This after all is the main practical purpose of learning from
history.

Modern Transformations

In comparing the classic and modern eras, there are two significant
differences. The first is quantitative, resulting from the geographic
discoveries of the Renaissance explorations four hundred years ago. The
second is qualitative, resulting from the technologic inventions of the
Industrial Revolution two hundred years ago.
As to quantity, according to the UN definition of a city as merely an
agglomeration of more than 20,000 people, there are tens of thousands of
such entities in the world now. If we raise the threshold of urbanhood
tenfold, so that we have something comparable to ancient Athens, then there
are over 2,500 cities of 200,000 or more people in the world. Most of them
are in North America and Asia (750 each), then Europe (600), Africa and
Latin America (200 each), and finally Oceania (50). Of these, only 150
cities have over 1 million people, 100 have over 2 million, 50 over 5
million, 20 over 10 million and only 5 over 15 million.
Even large cities, of course, are not necessarily states. Only one
-Singapore- in the 5 million range is a true modern city-state. Other
present examples, Andorra, Monaco, Liechtenstein, San Marino, are much
smaller and closer to the classical poleis. In any case, about a fifth of
the UN membership are microstates of less than a million people each; so by
no means are city-state equivalents absent from the modern world. If
anything they are on the rise, since most of the recent additions to
statehood fall in this category.
As to quality, cities, even if they are not states, are command-
control-communication nodes of the world system. These urban foci of high
social density and activity exchange matter (goods); energy (services); and
information (news), thus forming centers of gravity or salient points of
capital accumulation, resource allocation and policy determination.
As a result of the extraordinary economic development of the
industrial world in less than two centuries, the class structure of cities
has been changed significantly by the replacement of slavery with wage
labor. Increased productivity raised higher standards of living and better
quality of life for more and more people in the advanced countries of
Western Europa, North America and Pacific Oceania.
Yet, most people in the rest of the world still live in conditions
not that much better than ancient slaves. The infamous North-South gap of
the modern world is just as deep and wide as the rich-poor or free-slave
divide of the ancient world. Although slavery is no longer accepted in
law, its existential reality has not changed that much. In this respect,
our difference with the ancients is more legal and moral than actual and
physical.

Similarly, although humanity is no longer divided between Greeks and
barbarians, it is still divided in countless other ways on racial, ethnic,
religious, linguistic, and other cultural criteria. So much so, that one
may doubt the possibility of eradicating such divisions from the human
condition. It would seem that culture abhors a continuum, as much as nature
abhors a vacuum. Therefore, there will always be distinctive dichotomies
from I/thou and we/they to whatever human ingenuity dreams up at various
times and places.
Apart from the obvious technological or geographical differences and
the economic or cultural similarities, the politics of the classic and
modern worlds are striking comparable. In both cases, the macropolitical
system is composed of approximately the same absolute number of players:
i.e. almost two hundred; and their relative importance: i.e. a handful of
protagonists and a multitude of supporting cast.
Most significant, like in Greece, the central conflict still rages
among national sovereignty, transnational economy and international
society. Where does domestic jurisdiction end and collective security
begin? Does infranational legitimation negate supranational integration?
Are transnational corporations compatible with nation-states?
The main difference between the ancient and modern debates is
quantitative rather than qualitative, because our world is some orders of
magnitude larger. Nevertheless, for all macropolitical purposes, Greece is
an accurate microcosm of the modern world and we are the ancient world writ
large. As such, we can continue with the same process used above to expose
the modern dialectic contradiction.

The thesis now as then is state sovereignty whose supremacy does not
recognize any higher authority. The nationalist thesis now, as the
political thesis then, sees sovereignty as the necessary attribute of
ethnic survival and fulfillment. Therefore, every national community must
also enjoy political sovereignty.
The modern notion of sovereignty now rests on the image of a common
fate reflected in the psychological loyalty of patriotism and the physical
power of nationalism. This dual basis led to the modern Hobbesian realism
of national sovereign absolutism which contrasts with the Grotian idealism
of natural confederal relativism. Moreover, the gap between legal
sovereignty and political reality reflects the discrepancy between state
independence and market interdependence. Thus, on the one hand there is
state jurisdiction and interstate organization (regional or global);
whereas on the other, there is individual responsibility (transnational)
and collective loyalty (national).
The antithesis to nationalism in this respect is federalism which
insists in the transfer of at least some national sovereignty to higher
confederal bodies. In its most specific example, the debate between these
two positions takes place in the European Union, where its member states
have to balance their individual national interest with their common
economic prosperity, political security and cultural integrity in a
threatening global environment.
What was claimed for the city-state then is also demanded for the
nation-state now. The contradiction pitting the polis versus the nation
there, is translated to the nation versus the region here. That is why the
analogy between the states of classical Greece and the nations of modern
Europe is so apt. As the poleis resisted a pan-Hellenic amphictiony, so
states resist a European Union.
Just like classical Greece, contemporary Europe is searching for a
way to resolve the conflicts between parochialism, continentalism, and
globalism. The three exclusive domains for both situations are similar,
having merely shifted up one level: from polis-ethnos-cosmos to nation-
region-world, as our Matrix illustrates. In both cases, sovereignty resides
in the lowest level, whether it is city-state or nation-state.
From the Boeotian Confederacy to the United Nations, many cities and
states have tried to form intergovernmental organizations in order to
resolve their common problems. Beyond a certain point, what began as an
interstate organization becomes a supranational confederation. Thus, the
many sovereign city-states of ancient Hellas are now urban centers within
the single state of modern Greece. Similarly, many sovereign states of
Western Europe are presently uniting to form a single confederal community.
Beyond that, the United Nations is moving in the same direction of a World
Government, though it still has a long way to go towards that end.
At the same time as this integrating process is going on, ethnic
groups and local authorities are clamoring for greater self-determination.
This clash between powerful centripetal and centrifugal forces is reflected
in the dilemma between local desires and global necessities. Most likely,
some form of federalism can resolve this impasse, because it recognizes the
right of local authorities to engage in world affairs. Thus it is most
suitable to handle complex global interdependence by supplementing high
diplomacy with low technocracy, thereby blurring the differences between
foreign and domestic affairs.
Although, we know the historical outcome of the classical struggle,
the final synthesis of the modern dialectic has not yet been achieved. The
two main contenders are global internationalism embodied by the United
Nations and cosmopolitan transnationalism promoted by multinational
corporations. The regional synthesis of nationalism and supra-nationalism
in a continental scale is so far a limited solution which still leaves our
global problematic intact.


Future Anticipations

At the turn of the millennium, our transition from the modern to the
post-modern world is just as dynamic and dangerous as the transition from
the Hellenic to the Hellenistic era. In both periods, powerful forces
created contradictory stresses and strains which deformed the social fabric
by destroying cultural traditions, threatening political institutions, and
upsetting economic activities. Moreover, growing environmental problems
(our third neglected dimension) pit the natural ecosystem against the human
egosystem as well as the global sociosystem.
Following the Agricultural Revolution which produced the classical
world and the Industrial Revolution which resulted in the modern; the
Technological Revolution going on presently opens up the post-industrial
world of the third millennium. In this brave new world, emerging out of
Toffler's Third Wave, a plethora of artificial slaves make manual and
increasingly mental labor unnecessary. Thus most of humanity is not even
worth enslaving or exploiting any more and becomes excluded or expendable.
In its stead, the extensive exploitation of the environment
accelerates natural entropy to the point of planetary ecosystem collapse.
The carrying capacity of the biosphere is now challenged by a population
explosion which is befouling its own nest. Thus, urban culture, of which
the Greek civilization was so justifiably proud, is getting out of control
and threatens to implode in high density megalopolitan black holes.

From these ecologic and economic developments emerge growing
political and cultural contradictions stemming from the perennial
opposition between centripetal and centrifugal forces. Every social system
is always susceptible to being pulled apart by its units, as well as pushed
together by larger environmental pressures. Poleis then were threatened by
their internal tribal factionalism and external pan-Hellenic nationalism;
just as states now are squeezed in the middle by both their internal ethnic
infranationalism and external economic supranationalism.
The present nation-state thesis is therefore challenged by two
directly opposite forces: subnational urbanism and transnational
continentalism. The former tendency decentralized state sovereignty
downwards to its municipalities, whereas the latter integrates it upwards
to intergovernmental organizations. So nation-states are increasingly
pressured to share their jurisdiction with smaller and larger entities:
i.e. cities and regions.
In order to explain this contradictory phenomenon, Naisbitt's Global
Paradox affirms that the larger the system, the more numerous, stronger and
smaller its components. Since the bigger the system, the more efficient and
effective must be its parts; as the system grows and develops, its parts
shrink and consolidate.
This global trend towards greater political independence along with
greater economic interdependence is due to technology and
telecommunications which increase community participation and enhance
collective action, thereby strengthening tribal assertiveness. So people
can think locally and act globally, as well as vice versa. Consequently,
representative institutions may be declining and direct democracy may be
reemerging from its birthplace in Greece to spread around the world.
With the increase of global interdependence and the rapid dissolution
of national boundaries, the position and role of cities and regions will
increase proportionately. Urban dynamics have composite variables based on
the comparative advantage of cities. As the world impinges increasingly
upon cities, they react directly to protect and promote their distinct
interests. As long as municipal authorities feel the need, as well as have
the opportunity and resources to affect their environment on their own,
they will do so with alacrity and impunity.

Already, there is a marked development and empowerment of megacities
in the new transurban phenomenon reflected in a global network of semi-
sovereign metropolitan centers. These neopoles are the centers of power
where all important political, economic and cultural activities take place.
These proto-city-states are developing their own transnational relations
according to their municipal foreign policies, almost independently of
their nation-states. Indeed, what we see emerging is a transurban network
of international cities as part of the emerging global order in which
national state borders are of decreasing significance.
It is this planetary network that characterizes to a large extent
the global system dynamics in what has been called the New International
Cities Era. In this view, it is incontestable that the world is not only
urbanizing, but rapidly trans-urbanizing. Presently, its growing urban
population -almost half of humanity- is becoming increasingly inter
connective and interactive.
The conditions of peace and detente which prevail today increase the
margin of maneuver of subnational units and projects them to the inter-
national arena. World-cities are increasingly unhooked from their nation-
state; their destiny is determined more by foreign factors than domestic.
Such cities are colonized by international capital which is highly mobile
and volatile because it is not under the control of any particular state.
There is very little national governments can do to shield their
cities from these extra territorial forces which do not respect national
boundaries. Cities are therefore forced to resort to their own devices for
protection and projection. As such, urban politics will become more
important, at the same time as world politics become more significant. The
loser in both cases will be the intermediate nation-state.
The next step is to devolve more political power to the local level,
thus remaking urban citizenship a real decision-making avocation. Only such
evolution will effectively combat the widespread anomie and apathy
resulting from modern urban life styles. For this to happen, cities will
have to improve themselves physically (economically), psychologically
(culturally), and politically (cyberneticaly), thereby raise their capacity
to face their multiple challenges.


Conclusion

We can now conclude this short essay by reiterating that as the
ancient Greeks discovered the "polis" and the modern Europeans developed
the "state" in order to solve the problems of their times, the contemporary
world is groping to discover a way of synthesizing these two concepts in a
"cosmic" combination. In that search consists the classic trilemma of our
times, whose vanguard perhaps is to be found in the European "Union"
experiment going on right now.
The more humanity acquires the means to affect all life, the more
decisions are spread out to be taken collectively at various levels.
Already, the technology exists to reestablish direct democracy, so there is
no longer need for distant governments, even if they try to be
representative. Interactive telecommunications via the information highway
make it possible for every citizen to participate in public policy-making
just like in the Greek polis.
An emerging telecommunitary democracy can create a virtual agora in
which everyone can get involved to some degree. In that case teledemocracy
will transform the global village into a cosmopolis in which decision-
making power will most likely be shared by a condominium of international
organizations and transnational corporations, as well as infranational
regions and megalopolitan centers, in addition to the traditional states.
The hypothesis that the importance of the nation-state decreases as
its numbers increase is confirmed by the exploding UN membership along with
increasing member impotence and irrelevance. The 50 members of the UN in
1950, doubled in 1960, tripled by 1980 and probably quadruple to reach 200
by the year 2000, most of which are quite small by any standard.
If the recent trends of large state breakdown into smaller ethnic
components continues unabated, then the present hundreds of states will
multiply into thousands. By language alone, there are between five to ten
thousand nations in the world. If only 10% become independent, the world
may soon have 1000 states. (The former USSR alone officially recognized 100
ethnic groups. South America also has 100, Indonesia 300, Europe 75, and
China 50).
Consequently, the future global synthesis could turn out to be a
pyramid resting upon a 1000 small city-states, supporting 100 large nation-
states, organized around 10 continental federations, which finally
cooperate in a single global UN system. Thus strong local political
communities coordinate their policies within regional societies whose
cooperation optimizes economic inter-dependence in the ecoumenic system and
its natural environment.
This optimistic scenario, combines both synchronic and diachronic
dialectics by synthesizing ancient philosophy with the modern technology to
form the future society. The classical principles of strong local
community, integrity and simplicity, can combine with more modern notions
of humanity, equality and liberty to create a peaceful, tolerant,
multicultural and multilevel coexistence.

* * * * *

BIBLIOGRAPHY


Arnopoulos, P. J. Exopolitics. Nova Science, N. Y., 1999
Cosmopolitics. Guernica, Toronto, 1997
Sociopolitics. Guernica, Toronto, 1995
Sociophysics. Nova Science, N. Y. 1993
Mediterranean 2000. IMS, Athens, 1992

Beitz, C. Political Theory & International Relations. Princeton UP, 1979
Bernier, I. International Legal Aspects of Federalism. Hamdan, 1973
Braillard. P. Theorie des relations internationales. PUF, Paris, 1977
Farrar, C. The Origins of Democratic Thinking. Cambridge, 1988
Hettich, E. L. A Study of Ancient Nationalism. Bayard, Williamsport, 1933.
Redhead, B. Political Thought from Plato to Nato. Brooks/Cole, P. G. 1984
Russell, F.M. Theories of International Relations. New York, 1936.
Starr, C. G. Individual & Community. Oxford, N. Y. 1986
Toffler, A. The Third Wave. Bantam Books, N. Y. 1981
Wright, M. International Theory: The Three Traditions. Leicester UP, 1991

Politics
E. Boulding. Building a Global Civic Culture. Teachers College, N.Y,.1988
T. Chandler & G.Fox: 4000 Years of Urban Growth. St.David's U.P. 1987
R. A. Dahl: Polyarchy. Yale UP, N.H. 1971
F. R. Dallmayr: Polis & Praxis. MIT Press. Cambridge, 1984
M. Dogan & J. Kasarda (Eds): The Metropolis Era. Sage, London, 1988
C. Doxiadis & J. Papaioannou: Ecumenopolis. Norton, N.Y. 1974
H-J. Ewers et al (Eds). The Future of the Metropolis. Gruyter, Berlin, 1986
J. A. S. Evans: Polis & Imperium. Hakkert, Toronto, 1974
J. Ferguson: Utopias of the Classical World. Thames-Hudson, London, 1975
E. H. Fry et al (Eds): The New International Cities Era. BYU, Provo, Utah,
89
T. Gurr & D.King: The State & the City. Macmillan, N.Y. 1987
W. R. Halliday: The Growth of the City-State. Liverpool U. P. 1923
M. Hammond: City-state and World-state. Harvard, Cambridge, 1951.
R. Jackson: Quasi-States. Cambridge UP. 1990
J. Jacobs. Cities and the Wealth of Nations. Random House, N.Y. 1984
E. Junger: L'etat universel. Gallimard, Paris, 1990
A. Loisou & H. Lesser (eds): Polis & Politics. Avebury, Aldershot, 1990
H. Michelmann, & P.Soldatos (Eds): Federalism & I.R. Clarendon, Oxford, '90
D. J. Morris: The New City States. ILSR, Washington, 1982
J. Neils: Goddess & Polis. Princeton U. P. N. J. 1992
C. A. O. van Nieuwenhuijze: Nation & Ideal City. Mouton, The Hague, 1966
Y. Papageorgiou: The Isolated City-State. Routledge, London, 1990
D. Pozzi & J. Wickersham (eds): Myth & the Polis. Cornell U. P. Ithaca,
1991
M. B. Sakellariou: The Polis-State. N.H.R.F., Athens, 1989
S. F. Schneck: Person & Polis. SUNY, Albany, 1987
G. Song: Standard of Civilization in International Society. Clarendon, 1984
L. Strauss: The City and Man. Rand McNally, Chicago, 1964.
V.Tejera: City-State Foundation of Western Political Thought. UPA,Lan, '84

Classics
A. W. H. Adkins & P. White (eds): The Greek Polis. Chicago UP. 1986
H. C. Baldry: The Unity of Mankind in Greek Thought. Cambridge, 1965.
K. J. Dover: Greek World Order. Cambridge U. P. 1960
V. Ehrenberg: The Greek State. Blackwell, Oxford, 1960.
W. W. Fowler: The City-State of the Greeks & Romans. St. Martin's, 1966
H. Francotte: La Polis Grecque. Roma, 1964
K. Freeman: The Greek City-States. Norton, N.Y. 1950
G. Glotz: The Greek City. Alfred Knopf, New York, 1951.
A. J. Graham: Colony & Metropolis in Ancient Greece. Manchester, 1964
W. M. Hugill: PanHellenism in Aristophanes. Chicago, 1936
A. Jardé: The Formation of the Greek People. A. Knopf, New York, 1926.
H. A. M. Jones: The Greek City. Oxford, Clarendon, 1940
R. Kraut: Socrates & the State. Princeton UP, 1984
S. Kougea: L'Idée de Communauté des Peuples chez les Hellenes. Athenes, 28
J. A. O. Larsen: Greek Federal States. Clarendon, Oxford, 1968
V. Martin: La Vie Internationale dans la Grèce des Cités. IHEI, Geneve,
1940
P. McKechnie: Outsiders in the Greek City-States. London, 1989
O. Murrey & S. R. F. Price (eds): The Greek City. Oxford, 1989
G. R. Morrow: Plato's Cretan City. Princeton University, 1960.
G. Murray: Hellenism & the Modern World. Allen & Unwin, London, 1953
F. de Polignac: La Naissance de la cite greque. Paris, 1984
A. Powell: Athens & Sparta. London, 1988
W. K. Pritchett: The Greek State at War. UCP, Berkeley, 1991
C. Phillipson: International Law & Custom of Ancient Greece. Macmillan,'11
S, Scully: Homer and the Sacred City. Cornell UP, Ithaca, 1990
G. Tenekides: Greek Contribution to International Law. Academy, Athens,87
D. Whitehead: The Ideology of the Athenian Metic. PCPS, Cambridge, 1971.
A. Zimmern: The Greek Commonwealth. Oxford U.P, London, 1931.